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Using systems and habits to improve your life is a proven method to succeed. It requires seeing the work as a system and then adjusting your thoughts and behaviors to be able to take advantage of your opportunities in life.
The ability to communicate is a very important skill that too many of us ignore. This doesn’t necessarily mean the ability to give a formal speech without any grammar errors.
It means being able to take a thought in our head and convey that message to others. It could be in a negotiation, during a sales pitch, or even pouring out your heart for the one you love.
Read MoreWe all have to start where we are. We assume successful people started with enormous advantage but often as we learn about successful individuals we learn that they had some advantages in life but their success was more related to their constant desire to improve.
I’m currently reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I am fascinated to hear stories through his words and see that he spent years just working to make something of himself.
Read MoreMany of my articles focus on making very small changes over a long period of time to be successful. We can examine the systems and habits in our lives and design them according to our goals and dreams.
But sometimes change can’t wait. It has to happen right away. It could be that we are headed in the wrong path and need to drastically improve in order to avoid danger.
Read MoreWhen I was younger, I naively felt that what mattered was the destination not the journey. I thought sacrifice and discomfort were part of the journey and success and happiness were part of the destination.
Therefore, I worked hard but found myself miserable most of the time. So as I started to go through my high school and college years I started to shift my perspective.
Read MoreWhen we talk about influential people throughout history I am always surprised at how the narrative around these people seems to solidify over time. It seems like everyone would agree that Hitler is bad and Gandhi was good.
I hate these overly simplistic judgments. We all seem to want these clear, easy-to-understand characteristics of people. But people are complex and it isn’t that simple.
Read MoreI am always surprised when executives make the incorrect assumption that systems and processes are only relevant during execution, not in strategic planning.
They envision high level thinking and being so far outside the box that they can come up with unique ideas that disrupt their industry. They believe that the further away they get from the day-to-day operations the better equipped they will be to come up with a solution that gets away from the way it has always been done.
Read MoreWe all want to improve. We want better relationships, greater success, more freedom and increasing wealth.
But the behaviors that most people turn to are very low-leverage behaviors. They don’t rely on systems thinking and instead fall back on beliefs about change that may not be accurate.
Read MoreMost people that I know are busy. They have errands to run, bills to pay, things to do. They work long hours and always seem frustrated and busy.
Years ago, as I thought about this, I found it odd. For being so busy, a lot of people I knew weren’t actually doing anything too productive. They weren’t necessarily getting big things done
Read MoreFailure is a natural part of life. Our entire childhood is about learning limits. We try something and learn from the outcome.
I watch my daughters do this all the time. My two-year-old daughter is very adventurous. She climbs all over things and shows little fear as she pushes beyond what she had previously done.
Read MoreLife is all about risk. Every day we take risks. Some risks are obvious and some are subtle.
Every time we walk down the street we risk getting hit by a car or falling and twisting an ankle. When we drive in our cars we are risking an accident.
Read MoreI love to learn new things. I took a wine tour about a year ago at a local winery. While I enjoyed a little relaxation, time with my wife and some great wine, I was surprised that when we took a tour of the facility I was so entertained.
Part of it was the incredible true story about the property, but more than that, I started to realize that I just really enjoy learning something new. I learned about the history and famous criminals who took part in a shoot-out with police there in 1922. I learned about the process of making wine. I learned about the architecture of the various buildings.
Read MoreWhen you set out to improve something about your life, you are usually filled with optimism and hope. You dream about success and what it will feel like to have reached your goal.
But as soon as you start out, you will likely hit some roadblocks. Usually our dreams require us to work hard and overcome adversity in order to realize our vision.
Read MoreIn systems thinking, the concept of the feedback loop can be used to gain insight into what is happening in a situation. Feedback loops are everywhere and surface often in our daily lives.
One such feedback loop is discussed in an article from Psychology Today titled Miserable and Middle Aged? Is something Wrong with You? by Pamela B. Paresky, Ph.D. She says, “When people are not content with life, [Jonathon] Rauch explains, they can start to feel unhappy about being unhappy. Then being unhappy about being unhappy makes them feel even worse, and the feedback loop creates a downward spiral, leading to an ever deepening hole of dissatisfaction.”
Read MoreMost people that set out in life to achieve something start out with too little planning. They throw together a plan in their heads and refuse to evaluate the full system around what they hope to get.
This may sound like a solid strategy in today’s ever-changing world, but it isn’t. Too often when I see people start out with this loose, barely-there plan, they end up being too rigid to adjust once they set out.
Read MoreKnowledge and data are important in systematic improvement but those alone will not produce success. We have to be able to take that information and turn it into actionable steps that we can then take.
The action element that occurs after the evaluation is incredibly important. I have met many people throughout my career that got stuck in analysis paralysis. They just kept analyzing and researching but never really moved to action to test out their idea.
Read MoreWhen we evaluate success we often find terms such as luck and talent dominating our concepts. We point to hard work and time spent training.
While these are all aspects of the journey towards excellence, many argue that these are merely vague generalities that are only applied after success. One of the best articles to address this fallacy is The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers by Daniel F. Chambliss.
Read MoreMost people see failure as something awful that provides pain and heartache without anything positive. But most success stories have elements of failure interspersed with achievements.
Failure is a necessary aspect of growth. If we all simply strive to fail less, all we end up doing is what we are already doing. We never really know our limits or what we are capable of.
Read MorePointing out people who have great accomplishments might mislead you to thinking that success is easily defined. It is not. It is often vague, with our judgment playing a larger role than we realize.
Yet most people think of success in concrete terms. They think more money and more awards are distinguishing factors for the successful. They think more friendships or longer tenure mean someone is more successful.
Read MoreSystems are everywhere and I often say that everything is a system. Once you start studying systems thinking it is hard not to see the patterns and structures in place all over.
Many times we are a part of the system and never even realize it. We go through the motions and assume we have complete freedom, but in reality we are completely unaware that the system has great influence over us.
Read MoreClimbing the ladder, or climbing the corporate ladder, has become synonymous with growing a career sometimes through greed and sometimes by working hard. It incites a different emotional response from different people.
But climbing a ladder is very similar to the systems and habits approach to improvement. Both rely on small, step by step action to get closer to a goal.
Read More